Somebody near there PLEASE put these posters up around the show.I don't care which side of the gun debate you're on, you've got to admit the sudden scream as everyone logs on with their smartphones and laptops would be glorious to behold.

I work for a hunting and fishing company as a web designer. My entire team is there and I have plenty of designs there on showcase. It's a trade show so only industry peeps are allowed in. Before you jump on it, these aren't all wing nuts of the tea party screaming for assault weapons. I know many of my team actually advocate stricter gun control (better background checks, smaller clips, etc). So please measure what you think you know of this convention. Allow me to break the stereotype of what you expect a gun enthusiast to be. I live in Manhattan, am gay, super liberal, early twenties and a mean shot with a shotgun and clays. Also this shows been going on for over 30 years, so it's not some new thing. Every year at this time of year.

While I rarely get to do target practice (usually too time consuming on the short times I spend visiting the inlaws), I'm pretty cheesed off that Cuomo just made my 10-shot capacity illegal on the .22 Ruger I bought last year. Supposedly we can still possess the magazine, but can't load it past seven or it's a misdemeanor if caught. What the fark prompted that number? All it takes is one bullet to kill or seriously maim a person, assuming you can shoot straight.

ladyfortuna:While I rarely get to do target practice (usually too time consuming on the short times I spend visiting the inlaws), I'm pretty cheesed off that Cuomo just made my 10-shot capacity illegal on the .22 Ruger I bought last year. Supposedly we can still possess the magazine, but can't load it past seven or it's a misdemeanor if caught. What the fark prompted that number? All it takes is one bullet to kill or seriously maim a person, assuming you can shoot straight.

/not a gun nut//just like to keep the BRM skills sharp

How exactly will Cuomo & Co. know you've got an illegal magazine? Are they just going to go door-to-door and ask? Unless your gun gets confiscated because it was used in a crime (which I highly doubt), there's no way you can tell if someone has a verboten magazine just by looking at it. Stupid law is stupid.

There are a lot of ways, especially in NY, to get your stuff 'inspected' and get caught. I'm pretty sure (without looking it up anyway) that you aren't supposed to transport them loaded, for example. Get pulled over, stupidly admit to the firearm in the vehicle, all of a sudden you're arrested for having too many bullets in the magazine when you were just on your way to a cornfield to shoot some paper targets... etc.

There's an argument to be made that the consumer firearms market is a part of the economy and that restricting firearms in some new fashion would ruin tens of thousands of lives by shrinking the workforce.

Of course, that's something you learn if you study economics too long. No laws or regulations work in the way they're sold as. Want to reduce drug related violence by going after the gangs? Well, you're just raising the stakes instead of making the illicit market pointless. Want to reduce gun violence? Legalize pot and give away heroin to addicts.

Attendance to the show is restricted to shooting, hunting and outdoor trade professionals and commercial buyers and sellers of military, law enforcement and tactical products and services, however, meaning hunters, sports shooters and shooting clubs are not permitted entry.

That's good in theory and bogus in practice. If you're friends with a gun store owner, he'll get you in on a visitor or employee pass. Trade shows are like that. I'm going to the NAMM trade show with my friend who owns one of the local music stores in my area. Probably 1/3 of the attendees have no business being there.

/I have to work while I'm there. I look for new products while the owners attend keynote addresses, etc.

Twice as many people have died in homicide by firearms than all other methods combined. Yes, I realize that even if guns were banned, there'd still be a black market for guns. On the other hand, you'd have to acknowledge that even if that extreme were the case, that there would still be far fewer guns on the street available for use by those with criminal intent. The black market isn't going to be able to keep up the firearms-per-person ratio that legal sales do.

I wish I could dig up graph after graph and flood you with it, but this debate has been so poisoned that I can dig up graphs showing completely opposite things. I could probably find one showing a link between leprechauns and clip size if I looked hard enough.

I'll just have to reference common sense; If there's less firearms on the street, or they're more strictly controlled, or if all guns were required to be registered and reported stolen if and when they are, then that's going to make a dent in how often they're used in crime.

Correlation does not prove causation. You are merely looking at the numbers and then completely making up an assumption that if there were stricter laws there would be fewer gun homicides. For example, what percentage of those were committed with legally owned firearms versus illegally owned firearms? Stricter control of guns would probably only have a major impact on those committed with a legally owned firearm. Take Chicago as an example, for all those years listed on that chart Chicago had a total ban on handguns (well, near total, as only police officers and some security personnel such as armored car drives could possess one), yet every year roughly 75% of its 400+ murders were committed with handguns. You cannot get more strict than what amounts to a total ban, right? The same is true of DC. And what about DC? For two of the years listed they had a total ban on all firearms, yet their intentional firearm homicide rate was pretty high. And, there is also that this is the total number. What is the break down by state? And did you compare those numbers to the level of gun control in each state? That is something that cannot be ignored. Yet you have done so. You have looked at some numbers and just made up an assumption with no really data to support it.

Finally, have you ever stopped to look at the numbers? 100+ million people legally owning 270+ million guns. And how many murders each year? Even if one were to make the assumption that all intentional firearm homicides were committed by the legal gun owner that is a pretty damn impressive safety record. Assuming an average of 14,200 for the five years, that would be only 0.000142% of all legal gun owners used a gun to commit homicide! And again, that is assuming that the all of those homicides were committed by the legal gun owners, and we certainly know that to not be true, so the percentage will be even lower than that. There is no need to assume anything here. The numbers speak for them themselves. The VAST majority of legal gun owners are responsible gun owners. Is there any need for stricter gun control when the vast majority of gun owners already control their guns?